According to financial news on December 3 (Editor: Shi Zhengcheng), large technology companies continued the trend of 'going strong alone' last night and this morning, opening the curtain for the last month of U.S. stocks in 2024. By the close, the dow jones dipped slightly, while the s&p 500 index and nasdaq index reached new highs.

As of Monday's close, the s&p 500 index rose 0.24% to 6047.15 points; the nasdaq composite index rose 0.97% to 19403.95 points; the dow jones industrial average fell 0.29% to 44782 points.

(S&P 500 index daily chart, source: TradingView)

Analyst Ahan Vashi from Seeking Alpha interprets that although large cap indices continued to rise today, strong performance was concentrated in specific industries such as communications services and information technology. Economic-sensitive industries like oil, real estate, and utilities closed with significant declines, as investors returned to leading large market cap stocks—this is also a behavior of risk aversion.

On Monday, the market was also supported by the Federal Reserve's 'dovish tone'. Federal Reserve governor Christopher Waller stated that although it is necessary to wait to see if there will be any surprises in the upcoming data, he is inclined to vote in favor of continuing to cut interest rates at the December policy meeting. New York Fed president williams also mentioned the expectation of 'many rate cuts' in the future.

The most important economic data this week is Friday's non-farm payroll data. The market expects that after last month's two hurricanes and the boeing strike nearly turned October's non-farm into negative, the November data will show a surge. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve chairman Powell will also participate in an interview on Wednesday (midnight Thursday, Beijing time), and the market will closely watch for any clues pointing to a rate cut in December.

Tom Essaye, founder of The Sevens Report, states that this week will be the last truly important economic data week of 2024. If the results are 'just right', investors will expect an economic soft landing and a rate cut in December, which is beneficial for maintaining market sentiment at year-end.

Of course, as 2025 approaches, more and more analysts are starting to worry about what justifies further gains next year.

Miller Tabak securities strategist Matt Maley stated that many sentiment indicators are reaching extreme levels, and there are indeed concerns about the degree of euphoria in the market. However, most investors seem to think this is not a matter to worry about, and this complacency tells us that further increases by the end of the year are not guaranteed, but it's difficult to issue any warnings before seeing actual signs of the market starting to retreat.

Popular stocks performance

All "seven giants" of the U.S. stock market rose on Monday, with apple up 0.95% hitting an all-time high, microsoft up 1.78%, amazon up 1.36%, META up 3.22%, google-A up 1.50%, nvidia up 0.27%, and tesla, which released the latest version of its self-driving software, up 3.46%.

Chinese concept stocks showed overall positive sentiment, with the nasdaq golden dragon index achieving three consecutive gains, closing up 0.98% on Monday. pdd holdings rose 2.51%, baidu rose 1.73%, netease rose 1.59%, alibaba fell 1.63%, jinkosolar rose 11.31%, miniso rose 14.04%, kingsoft cloud rose 10.91%, daqo new energy rose 6.94%, and bilibili rose 3.91%.

Other news

[Intel CEO suddenly retires, reportedly ousted by the board of directors]

On Monday (December 2), local time, intel announced that CEO Pat Gelsinger retired on December 1 and resigned from the company's board of directors. According to insiders, the conflict between Gelsinger and the board of directors reached an irreparable point during last week's board meeting, and the board offered him the option of "resign or be fired."

Although the retirement news briefly caused Intel's stock price to rise over 5%, it ultimately closed down 0.5%, indicating that investors do not completely view the sudden departure of veteran Gelsinger as a bullish development.

[Stellantis CEO suddenly resigns ahead of schedule]

Last Sunday, Stellantis, the world's fourth largest auto manufacturer, suddenly announced that the board of directors accepted CEO Carlos Tavares' resignation. Media reports on Monday indicated that Tavares attempted to improve cash flow by "squeezing suppliers" in response to a sudden downturn in performance this year, raising concerns from the board. There were also disagreements between the parties regarding the strategy for electrification. Ultimately, the conflict ended with Tavares' resignation being advanced after pressure from the government, workers, and suppliers.

As of Monday's close, Stellantis fell by 6.29%, bringing its year-to-date decline to 43%.

[Super micro computer announces no misconduct found, stock price surges by 28%]

As of Monday's close, super micro computer rose 28.68%. The company's independent special committee previously announced that no evidence of misconduct by the board of directors or the audit committee was found and that it is not expected to restate financial data. However, some 'process errors' were indeed found during the investigation. The company stated that as part of the investigation committee's recommendations, it will appoint a new chief financial officer, chief compliance officer, and general counsel, and has already appointed Kenneth Cheung, previously the vice president of finance, as the new chief accounting officer.

[Musk's exorbitant salary again rejected by the judge]

According to the latest news after Monday's close, although Tesla re-voted to authorize CEO Musk's massive options incentive from 2018 at this year's shareholder meeting, Delaware Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick decided to uphold her ruling made in January. If Musk's appeal fails, it could have a huge impact on his wealth. As a result, Tesla fell over 1% in after-hours trading on Monday.

According to calculations, this stock options plan initially valued at 2.6 billion USD soared to 56 billion USD by the time the judge canceled it, and reached a value of 101.5 billion USD at the close on Monday.